Red Cedar

Applejack sighed. She could already imagine this was going to be a long wait for the airship crew to return with transport, so she decided to bite her tongue and not make a bad situation any worse by harping on Trixie's earlier comments. She seemed to have realized her error in judgement, at least, if her small, quiet attempt at an apology was any indication, but it would have been nice if that had been realized before it had even been said.

Instead, she just addressed the more pressing problem. "I've got a left foreleg I'd rather stay off of right now," she replied. "My shoulder is killing me." She tried to move it around some, and promptly decided not to more than needed. She just hoped there was some willow bark extract in that medical kit.

The crewpony nodded, seeing as nopony seemed to be in life or death danger at the moment. "All right. We'll be back as soon as we can with a way to get you two back to the city." he said, and with that, he climbed back through the hole in the hull and immediately took to the sky under his own wingpower.

Applejack sighed again and sat back. And so began an eternity spent with Trixie.

Hasbro, of course, is not going to touch seriously on this with a ten foot pole given that their stated target audience is preteen girls. I am, however, inclined to believe that all of them are straight, with the possible exception of Pinkie Pie, who is likely bi.

Applejack climbed the stairs of the cellar one last time, closing the doors behind herself and Groovi, then moved to a stack of empty baskets, loading several onto the now emptied cart. She smirked as she listened to Groovi's solutions for greater harvests. "Well, it's not a bad idea," she said, "I know of a few farms that do it that way. But, y'all may have noticed that we mainly grow trees here. That would be one hay of a big greenhouse." she added with a sweep of her hoof. "And trees tend to be on a fairly set yearly schedule as far as blooming and flowering and then growing fruit. I don't think it'd work even if we could find more glass than Prince Blueblood's private mirror factory. The rest of what we grow here is just for ourselves, anyway. Apples are our bread and butter."

Once she got the cart loaded with baskets again, she nodded to it again. "If y'all hitch yourself up again, let's go see how ya do at apple bucking."

Sorry, @Red Cedar... I've had sporadic-at-best access to a computer lately; I'll do what I can.  Please do forgive me.

No worries.

The first miniseries and first couple seasons are best, as is the movie. After the movie the animation quality of the series went way downhill.

Medium rare, with a nice rub or HP Sauce, and lots and lots of sauteed mushrooms.

Applejack could feel her blood start to boil at Discord's words. Certainly, if anything would warrant turning Discord into a statue again, it would be this, especially if anything were to happen to any of the ponies here as a result. She had to grit her teeth and swallow any response she might have had to that, though. As it was, the Elements weren't available for that any longer, and even if they were, Fluttershy might still not have been convinced. She would have to settle for the fact that there now would have been an additional two alicorns for Discord to answer to should the worst happen.

She trotted over to the writer, handing off the hat to the writer inhabiting Fluttershy's body. "I'll take good care of you for you, promise." she whispered.

@@Randimaxis

Your turn.

 "Yes! Trixie's here! With country bum-I mean...Applejack,"

Applejack slowly turned her head towards Trixie, raising her eyebrow in the other mare's direction. Even in all this, that was her first thought to say? "Seriously?" she asked.

She didn't really have time to wait for a response, however, as a pegasus wearing a pilot's uniform made his way through a hole in the hull towards them, taking a look over the two of them. "Oh thank Celestia," he said. "You're okay. That accounts for everypony, then. You two were the only passengers on this flight."

Seeing how bruised the two of them looked, he trotted carefully back over to a bulkhead, unbuckling a small chest and dragging it over with his teeth towards where Applejack and Trixie sat. "This is an emergency kit. It has food, water, and a first aid kit, and there's other's around the deck just like it, you can see." he said, gesturing with his hoof. "The crew and I are going to fly back to the city and bring help. Stay close to the hull, so we can find you. It'll be cooler, too. Are either of you seriously hurt?"

@@Golbez

You're up!

Who's up here?

Haven't gotten a new pic so I'll use the same one as last year. Thanks for doing this again.

It is. Sorry, been sick this week.

For the animated films, the most underrated but excellent ones are Treasure Planet, Atlantis and Rescuers Down Under.

For the live action ones, the most underrated is The Black Hole.

Applejack, for the life of her, couldn't figure out what Groovi meant about the smell of ponies. Anyway, she didn't have time to figure out if the bugs in her cellar didn't like the fact that she wouldn't have a shower until that evening when the work was done. There were more baskets to stack.

Her other question was quite a bit more clear, though, although she had to smirk at Groovi's mention of throwing off the yoke. Applejack couldn't help but think that Groovi would be amused if she learned that her brother wore one like she wore her favourite hat. "Well, we try to keep rested when we can. I learned the importance of that the hard way, I can tell you. Tried to tackle the whole harvest myself when my brother got hurt one year. It wasn't pretty. I was loopier than a grasshopper with one rear leg by the time I gave up and asked my friends for help." She took a breath as though remembering the weight that was lifted off her that summer when Twilight and her friends did come and help her, after she'd overcome her stubborn refusals. "I get a day off now and then, but the thing is, when you're working a farm, your work schedule is mostly told to you by the trees and the weather schedule from Cloudsdale. If you don't git 'er done in time, the apples fall anyway, and not into the baskets where you want 'em." Placing her basket on the shelf, she went back up for the last one on the cart. "We get our big break over the winter, when nothin's growing."

Hearing Trixie's voice somewhere on the other side of the toppled ship, Applejack slowly hobbled in the direction, trying to keep her footing on the oddly angled bulkheads in order not to aggravate her shoulder any further. Finally, looking up, she found Trixie making her own way over. Applejack thought she had definitely seen better days, given that very nasty looking blow to her head.

One thing was for sure, if that was as bad as it looked, the last thing she needed was to be moving. "Here," she said, motioning to a bulkhead still within the shade of the airship's hull that looked like it would be good enough to rest on at its new angle. "Why don't y'all have a seat. Better not to do much after a blow like that."

As she was beginning to settle down on the bulkhead herself and take her weight off her sore shoulder, the sound of fluttering wings outside made here ears perk up, especially when it was followed by another strange voice calling, "Hello? Anypony here?"

Applejack had been sitting quietly in a corner of the room with an astounded expression on her face. This was a side of Twilight's mother she had never seen before, and Applejack was left trying to reconcile the sweet matronly mare that she normally knew as Twilight Velvet with the drill sergeant giving marching orders in front of her.

One thing was certain. Applejack now knew exactly how Shining Armour had come by his role, and it was all natural.

As Pinkie Pie explained what was going on as far as planning went, Applejack nodded. "You betcha, Pinkie. I got a whole mess of treats planned for the party. You just let me at that kitchen." She said with enthusiasm. This was going to be great.

I've helped my kids make OCs. It's fun. That's a cute one, too.

The gowns aren't meant to be flattering, or modest. They're meant to be easily removable from a patient lying on their back if necessary for any reason.

I don't like wearing them, either, but then I try to stay out of hospitals whenever possible.

My grandfathers were both lucky enough to be too young for WWI and too old for WWII. My mother remembers air raid drills where she would leave her house and lie in the ditch during the last days of WWII.

It's all the bouncing around she does.

She's been my favourite since day one, so, if you're too blind to see, I can't help you.

(Hey, we all have our likes and dislikes. Nobody's perfect.)

Guys with long blonde hair are hot. I'd look good even with the red ribbons.

I have come to the conclusion that admins and moderators of most fannish sites, be it of MLP or anything else, get chosen mostly through cronyism and activity on the forum rather than any real interpersonal communication skills. This is the downfall of many sites. If the site was also created by an immature person who just likes to be seen as the one in charge, that's even worse.

My favourite faithful adaptation of the story is the 1951 film staring Alastair Sim. Sim was primarily a comedic actor before this film but he performed Scrooge impeccably and let his comedic side shine when Scrooge awoke on Christmas morning.

Another interesting take on the story was a British made-for-tv movie set in the modern day, featuring Edward Scrooge as a ruthless loan shark.

As far as more unorthodox versions go, one of my faves was from the cartoon Real Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters accidentally get sent back to Victorian England where they capture the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come before they had the chance to influence Scrooge. After they return to the present and place the Spirits in the ghost containment unit, they realize that they altered history, and now Scrooge's miserly philosophy on Christmas has widespread acceptance. So, half the Ghostbusters go back in time to try and trick Scrooge into believing the Spirits are visiting him while the other half enter the containment unit to retrieve the Ghosts of Christmas.

And, for a reversal of the idea, as well as just plain silliness, there's Blackadder's Christmas Carol where Ebenezer Blackadder is shown his descendants will rule the universe if he becomes less philanthropic and more cruel instead.